


Library

by Quiddity



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Multi, SWF Ask Fills, consider this a grab bag, mostly sheith and shance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2018-11-14 02:26:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 16,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11198511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quiddity/pseuds/Quiddity
Summary: In the interest of organization, I've collected all my SWF prompt fills into one fic. Consider this a grab bag of just about any possibility, but right now it's mostly Sheith and Shance.Newest Chapter (9/11/18): Keith/Sendak, Empire!Keith





	1. Return/Sheith/G

**Author's Note:**

> Chapters are labeled by title (if there one), ship, and rating. Any relevant tags will be at the beginning of the chapter, but this is only swf fills so I don't expect anything too wild to show up.

Keith had left in April. Now it’s late August and the heat rolls into the apartment past Shiro in waves. Keith sits on the couch, his legs crossed under him, the pint of Neapolitan Shiro had been lusting after all day cradled in his lap. A spoon hangs from his lips as he looks towards Shiro, then he pulls it out and smiles lightly.

“Hey babe. Close the door, it’s hot as hell today,” Keith hums. He dips his spoon, brings up a lump of strawberry and Shiro know instantly that the pint is beyond saving because strawberry is Keith’s favorite and he always saves the best for last.

He’s let his hair grow out while he’s been gone. It’s freshly washed, bouncy and shining black and at some point since he’s come home he’s gone through Shiro’s dresser and borrowed a set of his clothes. But Shiro’s favorite jacket sits on the arm of the couch beside him, so at least he brought that back with him from...wherever he’s been. His bike is suspiciously absent.

Shiro shuts the door behind him, sets his bag on the floor. He crosses the room and settles down beside Keith, slipping an arm around his slim waist and feeling the soft bumps of his ribs through his shirt. Keith leans into him, tucks his head under Shiro’s chin. Warm and smelling of Shiro’s shampoo.

“You never eat enough while you’re by yourself,” Shiro complains lightly. He worries while Keith is gone. But he’s never never not come back, and the most Keith will ever take to heart is a gentle scolding.

“Then I want steak for dinner,” Keith purrs. He sets the empty ice cream carton aside, turns into Shiro further and squeezes him around the chest. Shiro presses a kiss to the top of his head. He’s missed this over the past four months and, though he knows Keith will never admit it, he knows the younger man feels the same in how his fingers tangle into his shirt at his back.


	2. 16 Hours/Sheith/T

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags: Angst

“Hey Keith!” Shiro starts, smiling wildes at an image of himself. Six months out from Earth,  six months staring at himself while talking to his loved ones back home, and he still never got used to it. It was still hard to leave messages that sounded genuine and not like one of the endless string of his mission logs.

“We made it! We landed on Kerberos a couple days ago and everything went just as planned. We’re all just fine,” Shiro takes a deep breath. He’s not quite sure how Keith would react to that. Either he would be overcome with relief because, as much as he denied it, Keith was prone to occasional hints of dramatics. Or Shiro could just as easily see him taking the news in stride. Shiro landing safely on the edge of the solar system was no big deal.

‘Of course you did,’ Shiro can hear Keith say. He can even imagine the way he would lean back in his chair, see that smug little grin of his. Keith took Shiro’s piloting skills as a fact of life. Sometimes it was scary, Keith’s confidence in him.

“We’ve got home base set up, and everything made it as planned. Matt and Sam are putting the last touches on the rover and here pretty soon we’ll head out and...well,” Shiro shrugs. “Gonna start on those ice samples.” He can still hear Keith’s laugh echoing in his apartment. Traveling all the way to Kerberos only to pick up ice cylinders for eight weeks. Shiro watches himself give Keith a long suffering look.

“We’re almost halfway there, Keith,” Shiro sighs. Six months and the ache was becoming a heavy, tangible thing sitting on his chest. Every single day, he can’t help but think about the last meal before launch. Two of the biggest, most expensive steaks they could find in the commissary. Keith across the tiny dining room table, his hair shining in the soft candlelight. Glowing and devastatingly beautiful and never believing when Shiro told him exactly that, no matter how many times he tried to convince him. How tense Keith was at first, but how pliant and gorgeous he was once he let Shiro warm him up a little.

“I miss you, and I can’t help but think about how long it’s gonna take you to hear that from so far away.” He wishes he could say more, but he knows the Garrison screens everything being sent out beyond mission control. Kerberos is 4.5 billion miles away. It now takes 16 hours for messages to get to Earth. Shiro sighs, says his goodbyes, and sends the message off. In 16 hours, Keith will finally know for sure that he’s made it Kerberos safely.

In 16 hours, Shiro is being dragged to a prison cell.


	3. Taste Test/Sheith/G

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags: Coffeeshop AU

“I want you to try this.”

That how this all started The lights in this little coffeeshop were a bright yellow beacon in the middle of a dark street. The only store open after 11:30 besides the 24 hour gas station down on the corner Keith had dropped by for a bag full of junk food. It was the only reason he was out so late: he hadn’t eaten a proper dinner and it caught up to him in the middle of the night.

He’d caught the lights out of the corner of his eye, a cheery square set in the shadows between two softly lit streetlamps. It was something on a whim. It was nearly midnight. He had nothing better to do. So he slipped his bag over his wrist and started down the street to check out what was going on. Worst case scenario was that whoever closed had forgotten to turn off the lights on the way out and Keith just had to walk an extra block home.

Coming up to the windows though, Keith hears the radio is still going on inside. Something soft and acoustic muffled through the glass. His curiosity piqued, Keith tries the door. It’s locked, but the bell attached to a bar up top still jingles softly. Keith is just thinking that someone was have been a walking zombie shutting up shop when he catches movement towards the back of the room.

A tall man comes out of what’s probably a storage room from the back of the store and Keith’s breath catches hard in his chest. It’s not terribly often that Keith finds someone attractive, but this guy, with the wide shoulders, the strong jaw, the soft gray eyes, is devastatingly so. The man approaches the door and Keith sees that he’s got a bar of dark chocolate in his hand. With his free one, he motions and Keith realizes he’s asking if he wants to come in. Keith shrugs, and the door clicks open.

“Do you need anything?” the man asks when he opens the door. He stands back and holds the door open and okay Keith isn’t really planning on having some coffee even though he’s pretty sure the shop actually is closed, but the guy is holding the door open and he finds himself stepping in nonetheless. The coffeeshop is warmer than the mildness outside, seeping into his jacket. It smells of coffee, hints of chocolate and cinnamon underneath. There’s only a couple tables up front, and the counter is a deli style glass case, though it stands empty.

“I just… saw the lights and got curious,” Keith says. The guy hums, closes the door behind them and heads over to the counter. It’s not until he gets behind it and starts ripping open the chocolate bar that he seems to realize he’s hasn’t given any context for this.

“Oh!” he reaches across the counter and offers Keith his hand. “I’m Shiro.” Keith shakes his hand.

“Keith,” he says. Shiro gives him a smile that warms the back of his neck. “What are you doing here so late? Everything else is closed.”

“Ah,” Shiro starts. He sets down the bar of chocolate on the counter and turns to a coffee machine on the counter behind him and pulls over a large cup. “I have some trouble with insomnia, but Allura- I mean, the owner, she doesn't’ mind me sticking around a couple hours late and experimenting with the drinks.”

Keith sniffs as a fresh rush of coffee rushes towards him. It’s nice and heavy, and when Shiro sets the cup on the counter between them it’s a deep, rich looking black. “Is that what you’re doing now?” Keith asks. Shiro nods.

“Do you like coffee? I was a little bit hoping you would be willing to give me a second opinion on what I’m working on tonight.” Shiro reaches under the counter and opens a small fridge. He pulls out a small carton of half and half and a can of whipped cream. “I want you to try this, Keith.”

Keith tells himself he doesn’t flush at the sound of his own name on Shiro’s lips. He tells himself it doesn't’ sound super nice, but a wilder part of him in the back of his mind tells him he wouldn’t regret giving this guy his number.

“Ah, I don’t mind trying whatever you’re working on. I just don’t like things that are too sweet,” Keith says.

“Perfect. I was trying to come up with something on the more bitter side. ‘Cause, I like black coffee, but it’s overwhelming for a lot of people, but it’s easy to make things too sweet here too.” Keith watches as Shiro pours in a couple teaspoons worth of half and half, stirs it in, then tops it with a little whipped cream and the coffee is still warm enough to start melting the whipped cream by the time Shiro shaves a few bits of dark chocolate over the top. Keith takes the cup and it’s hot against his fingers. He glances at Shiro as he sets it to his lips and takes a little sip, mindful of the heat.

It’s rich, but in a creamy way, not really overly sweet, the cream just enough to cut through the bitterness of the black coffee without hiding its flavor. And at the end, the faintest hint of the dark chocolate. It’s _good_. Shiro’s looking at him expectantly, and it reminds Keith of a kid trying too hard not to see his scores on a test.

It’s cute.

Keith takes another sip, just because he can’t help himself, but Shiro must take it as a sign that he’s not sure about it. “Is something wrong?” he asks. “Still too sweet?” Keith shakes his head. A third sip and now he thinks he’ll probably end up finishing this before he’s out the door.

“No, I just really like it,” Keith admits quietly against the rim of his cup. Shiro’s smile comes back brightly and oh, god, Keith might have to check this place out more often. “Will you make it for me again sometime?” Keith asks, staring at Shiro’s collar when he loses his nerve to look him in the eye at the last second.

“I will make it for you whenever you want,” Shiro hums happily.


	4. Speak Up/Sheith/G

He should do it.

He should just do it. Get it over with. Rip off that metaphorical bandaid because every time he looks at Keith, he feels the half healed wound of his affections tugging at his heart. It’s really stupid, to still feel like this.

His chest shouldn’t be this tight just watching Keith sitting on the couch in the rec room. It shouldn’t bother him that Keith isn’t paying any attention to him, his eyes instead downturned on his jacket as he inspects a worn seam. The way Keith’s dark hair falls over his eyes, the way he curls his legs up under himself when he’s comfortable, how his fingers move over the cloth with such care. The furrow in his brow. The soft pout on his lips. The shape of his shoulders under his shirt. Shiro shouldn’t _care_ about these things. He shouldn’t want these intangible, indescribable things that only Keith has.

But he still does. More than ever.

Keith has never thought about him like that. He knows it. Because even back in their Garrison days Keith always had so many things that were more important than a relationship. His piloting. Classes. Tests. Overcoming the obstacles of his past. Shiro could always help him with all those things and encourage him to scrap together some kind of social life besides, but that was all. Keith didn’t have room in his life and Shiro didn’t have the right to barge into what little space was left and demand attention for himself.

And that was then and this is now and the possibility of even a smidge of anything happening between them is ludicrous to consider. Shiro’s been gone for a year. He’s changed, done things he can’t ever talk about because he can hardly bear to think them to himself. He’s been molded into a different person. Something strange and distorted and _not normal._

Keith has changed too. Who had been independant because he was forced to and because he was too scared to trust anyone else isn’t there anymore. Now Keith is independent because he knows he can handle himself on his own. Because he trusts everyone on this ship to back him up if he can’t. Keith...doesn’t need him. And Shiro has to admit that he’s proud of him for it. Keith has had time to forget about him and move on to be a better person.

But then Keith sets his jacket down in his lap, leans into the arm of the couch and glances up at him through his bangs. Just a little. But asking.

Maybe.

Keith doesn’t say anything but Shiro knows, in the pit of his stomach, what that look means. He wants to say something, but he’s not sure. It’s the same look he gave Shiro all the time when a quiet moment would pass between them on Earth. Something hanging there in the space between them and Shiro aching over whether he should reach out and pluck it out of the air. Tell him he loves him. That he always has. That he wants that space to not _be_ there anymore.

He’s staring.

Keith smiles. Just a little quirk at the edge of his mouth as he sets the jacket to the side and sits up. Attentive.

Keith’s listening.

Maybe he should speak up after all.


	5. A Different Person/Sheith/T

He was a different person. Oddly enough, it wasn’t something Keith realized right away. Not when Shiro suddenly appeared in an alien escape pod. Not while getting the lions. Not through the first several times they had formed Voltron.

Keith first realizes it sitting against the wall in the training room, his lungs burning and throat raw as he fights to catch his breath. His hair sticks to his face, pulls between his fingers when he tries to push it out of his eyes, only for it to flop back where it was.

Last night he had found a picture of Shiro in his jacket. It was from back in their Garrison days. But it wasn’t a picture of stiff upper lips and starched suits. It was a dim picture of Shiro leaning back in a white plastic chair, his feet crossed on a metal railing. Keith remembers taking it, remembers fighting with the flash on the camera to get a good image.

It had been a day the two of them had snuck out after class on a Friday, made the three hour drive to Vegas only to pen up in a beat down motel outside of the city. No gambling, no traffic, just watching the hazed glow of the strip on the horizon from the tiny balcony of their second story room. A little cooler and a six pack of beers between their chairs, killing hours by making up new constellations out of the brightest stars that managed to fight their way through the light pollution.

Keith brings his knees to his chest and wraps his arms around them, setting his chin on his knees as he watches Shiro ram a glowing fist through a gladiator bot. He was in a mood to break them today, but instead of giving in to the unease creeping up the back of his neck, Keith thinks about sharing that tiny, uncomfortable motel bed. The feel of a thin comforter over them. The sound of Shiro’s heart under his ear. The flickering glow of the tv on the wall in the early morning hours and his eyes burning from lack of sleep.

This Shiro, the one that whips around and nearly rips the arm off another gladiator bot, isn’t the same. The Shiro he looks at now isn’t the same Shiro who tucked Keith against his chest as they drove down the hot desert highway at nine in the morning. The one who always ate his pancakes with too much syrup. The one who pressed kisses in his hair every time they stopped and Keith pulled his helmet off.

He’s different but…

Shiro puts the last gladiator bot down in a rain of sparks, metal screeching on the floor as it tumbles. Shiro stands up straight. Closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath in, lets it out along with all the tension in his shoulders. Keith remembers that little habit from the times Shiro would get frustrated back at home. Whenever he had too much steam to blow off or another one of the officers would wear on his nerves. Usually Keith would see it in the gym whenever Shiro would inevitably burn his irritation off through a long, hard run. The long breath always came at the end of a storm. The long breath that always worked so much better for Shiro than for himself.

“Sorry about that,” Shiro says, turning to Keith and finding him where he’s curled up against the wall. “It kind of got away from me.” Keith smiles, and the smile Shiro gives him back is genuine and relaxed. Shiro drops to his knees, then rolls on his side besides Keith, his whole body stretched out in a messy way he never would have shown anyone but Keith. Keith hands him a pouch of water and Shiro thanks him breathlessly, crinkling it as he sucks the entire thing down.

This Shiro was different, but not unrecognizable. In the end, they were basically the same. Keith just had to view him from a different angle.


	6. 652/Sheith/G

He’s been keeping it on a memory stick for the past several months. When the Kerberos crew disappeared, or rather when it was announced they had disappeared, the only reaction had been stunned silence. No one was angry. No one was sad. The officers were calm, methodic in the way they had told everyone the news that three people were lost at the edge of the solar system due to a pilot error. Instead of going to class, Keith had bought the stick from the commissary, gone to the flight simulator, and saved a copy of the Kerberos exercises.

There was no flight class that day. When Keith went back the next morning, any traces of Kerberos was gone. The instructors had scrubbed clean any trace of the mission overnight. Over the next several weeks all the facts, everything that Keith knew, was being steadily replaced by whatever little bits and white lies those higher up the totem pole decided to try and spoon feed him. The same false crap they gave the news outlets and the public.

Keith lets out a deep breath when the simulator doors close behind him. He steps to the chair, pulls open a panel in the floor just in front of him. There he can push the stick in and load up the correct simulation.

He knew better than to believe any of that. Keith turns the simulator on, runs through the checks before it gives him the list of exercises. He scrolls all the way down, never seeing anything about Kerberos until he gets to the extra storage. He chooses the landing program. Shiro had, according to public sources, misjudged their altitude over the icy plains of Kerberos and brought the ship in too fast, critically damaging it.

Keith can see in the user data that Shiro has run through this particular hour-long simulation 652 times. Keith remembers before the Kerberos mission launched. Every single day for almost a year before they left, Shiro was in here, running this simulation, the take off, they pass by Jupiter where they used the massive planet’s gravity to launch them into the furthest reaches of the solar system, the same with Saturn on the way back, the return orbit around Earth. All together, he had almost six hours of exercises, all of them ramped up to the highest degree of difficulty. One mistake and he would fail it.

Keith remembers when Shiro first started them, he had failed probably the first twenty or so times. Just while he was getting used to the hair trigger controls, until he had seen almost all the random variations that could arise. Shiro had hardly talked to him then. He was always working. He put himself through the wringer. He would go in well rested. He would go in after two caffeine pills. He would go in after thirty hours without sleep. Shiro was meticulous. He was a perfectionist. Anything he could think of to make it harder for himself, he tried it. He did it over and over until he could do it right with any kind of handicap he could come up with. Nothing was going to stop him.

Towards the end, when the launch was looming near and both of them had really started knowing that Shiro was going to leave. When both of them had this growing sense of truly being separated for months on end. When it was real and they were trying to squeeze in every minute they could, Shiro had invited Keith to come with him into the simulator, pulled a blindfold out of his back pocket and said, if he crashed during landing, he owed Keith dinner at the nicest restaurant in town. Keith had already been dreaming of steak when Shiro had taken his seat in the pilot’s chair, feeling around for the controls.

Keith remembers it now, as he leads the craft into the scant pull of Kerberos’ gravity, how Shiro’s hands twitched on the controls. He was stiff in his chair, nervous of failing when he’d put on so much bravado, but there was this beautiful, giddy smile on his face. Keith had sat, mesmerized, through the entire thing as Shiro eased the craft through a perfect, gentle arc. Shiro had landed the craft on the icy surface of Kerberos with the softest jolt. A little rough, but none the worse for wear.

Keith had bought Shiro a steak instead. This was the ultimate proof that Shiro was the best pilot on Earth. Proof that he had nothing to worry about.

But that wasn’t true. The Kerberos mission was gone. The crew was gone. Shiro was gone. Keith was only now, as he racks up flight time every night, running through this same landing sequence over and over, desperately picking through every little thing that could have gone wrong, coming to terms with the fact that he’d never see him again.

He might be able to accept the fact Shiro would never come home.

But Keith would never, ever believe that it was because of a pilot error.

Keith is just pulling back on the thrust and pulling the craft into a landing position when the screen go black. The doors open behind him and the whole cabin fills with the harsh yellow light from outside. He can tell it’s Iverson standing behind him just from the shape of his shadow.

“We told you what would happen if we found you breaking curfew again, didn’t we?” Iverson growls, and Keith hears the steps of several more pairs of boots behind him.

Keith sinks into his chair and leaves the memory stick where it is. He won’t be needing it anymore.


	7. Busted/Shance/G

When Lance sees him, his blood runs cold. What kind of luck was this? How could he get this far into his escapades only to find this kind of wall between him and a good night?

Sneaking out of the Garrison? No big deal. Security around the dorms was actually pretty light because no one expected any of the cadets to actually make a run for it. Finding a ride after 11 at night? Twenty dollars had never failed to get him a ride into town, and even if he didn’t quite get to his destination in mind, it wasn’t too bad of a walk.

An officer sitting in one of the patio chairs of his favorite bar? Nope. The officer in question being a one Takashi Shirogane, not only a legendary pilot, but a personal inspiration? No way. Shiro looking really nice in a black button up and jeans, the first couple buttons open to show his collar, his hair slicked back out of his face? Oh goodness. It was all too much.

Lance stumbles, his fingers still in his pocket where he was pulling out his wallet, his eyes glued to the way Shiro’s throat bobs as he sips at a beer. Several emotions rush over him all at once. Wonder over this new side of Shiro he’s never seen before, warmth in his belly when something visceral in him approves of the look. Then Shiro glances up as he sets his glass down and their eyes lock and all of that withers up and dies under his fear.

Busted.

Shiro points at him, then motions for Lance to approach him with a wave of his fingers. Lance glances around, as if there would possibly another wayward cadet out here in the middle of the night that could take the heat for him. But no. It’s only him. Only Shiro.

“I think it’s a little after curfew,” Shiro hums when Lance circles around the fence and takes a seat at the table across from Shiro. “What are you doing out here?” He doesn’t sound angry, and he doesn’t look it either. Instead Shiro merely looks relaxed, his cheeks a little flush and maybe this beer in front of him isn’t his first of the night.

“Uh, well,” Lance stutters, and then says possibly the dumbest thing he could have come up with. “I couldn’t sleep.”

He can tell it’s really dumb because Shiro pauses mid sip, stares at him over the rim of his glass. His brow furrows like he hadn’t quite understood what Lance had said, then he chuckles, the sound echoing where the glass is around his mouth.

“You always sneak out of bed and all the way into town when you can’t sleep? How’d your parents keep track of you?” Shiro asks when he sets his beer back on the table. Lance bites his lip, laces his fingers together in his and presses his chest against the edge of the table and gives Shiro his best, most innocent look.

“I’m really sorry, man- sir! I-I- It’s really dumb of me to come out here,” Lance pleads. “I-I won’t do it again!” Shiro shakes his head and Lance’s heart feels like it stops completely.

“Nah, I don’t believe you. But I’ll make you a deal since this is the first time,” Shiro says. “You sit here and keep me company until my bill comes in a few minutes, then you drive me back to the base so I don’t have to buy a cab. Then you show me where you snuck out, and I’ll make them go easy on you.”

“But-” Lance starts. That doesn’t sound fair at all! Give away his little hole in the fence where security never found him and get turned in anyways?

“I won’t let them give you more than demerit. Don’t worry. And it’s your own fault you let me catch you. I’m sitting out here in the open. Besides, I know you’ll back out bad enough to find another way, and then maybe you’ll be more careful about officers catching you on their day off,” Shiro says and drains the last of his beer. Lance’s shoulders sag in defeat.

“Yessir.”


	8. Lyin' Eyes/Shance/G

Shiro has too many things to worry about on his plate right now. There's the small things; keeping up with his classes, making sure he calls his father every weekend, spending time with his handful of friends even when he wants to do nothing more than just lay in bed and wonder why he couldn't just forget about everything and run away. On top of that were bigger things like work, an internship on the side, the bar exam coming up in little more than a year.

 

The only place he feels like he can really let go and just relax in his own head is at a tiny bar downtown. He'd found it tucked away in an alley on one of his walks, the only sign of its existence being a chalkboard sign reading that Friday nights were open mic and all drinks had a two dollar discount. Shiro, and most of the other regulars, used the savings to tip the artists.

 

Shiro loved the place. It only fit the bar, and seating for less than twenty people. On open mic night they shifted the tables a bit and set up a bar stool and a standing microphone in the corner of the room. The kind of people who used it were typically singers, or amature comedy artists or poets looking to practice routines or give readings of their current works. It was always a low key affair and the atmosphere was never anything but open and accepting.

 

It had only taken a few weeks for Shiro to make a habit of dropping in on open mic night. He never had anything to share; his life was too busy with his own stresses for him to have the time to  devote to creative endeavors. But coming in, sitting down for a few beers and just experiencing what everyone else had to show was something he could look forward to. Here, he didn't have to be in a rush to do anything, didn't have to think about looking or acting perfectly lest someone take it as a weakness to poke at him and call him unprofessional, a slacker, an idiot who had no idea what he was talking about. He could just mull over poetry and songs and afterwards, when the performers usually made their way around the room seeking critiques, it was a _conversation_ rather than an excuse to belittle someone. He always went home feeling refreshed and that perhaps not everyone was out to get him.

 

He's been taking it pretty slow tonight; he's on his second drink as he listens to the music. There's only one person performing tonight; a slim kid probably not too far out of high school. He's a cute, charismatic thing who had made himself right at home on the makeshift stage once it was clear he was the only person intending to put on any kind of show. He had an acoustic guitar with him and he'd been running through old covers and some original work for the past couple hours, taking time in between to chat with the crowd and tell stories about whatever just seemed to be on his mind.

 

It feels like he's sharing so much, but, as the kid checks a couple chords, Shiro realizes he still doesn't know a whole lot about him. Just that his name was Lance, he'd grown up on the beach somewhere,and that his friend made his living as a mechanic. Shiro's been listening to him sing and talk all night, but he's not grown the least bit tired of hearing him.

 

"I think this will be my last song of the night," Lance starts, he gives the tiny crowd a sheepish look. "I might have been enjoying my time up here a little too much, but you've been a really nice bunch to talk to. So, this song is really old, and most of you probably heard it a million times, but it means a lot to me and I wanted to save it for the end, so, yeah, here we go." Shiro recognizes the song within the first few seconds as Lyin' Eyes by Eagles. He hasn't heard it in a good long time, but it comes back to him quickly. The story of a woman who's in a relationship for money and material comfort, thinking it's the ticket to an easy life, but in the end she's terribly unhappy because she's not living true to herself.

 

Halfway through the song, Shiro starts thinking about his own situation. He'd joined law school out of his want to help others. To fix injustices and help maintain order. Sometimes it felt like he was the only person to think that way. It seemed like his fellow law students cared more about winning instead of finding the best solution for everybody. While Shiro was doing his best to build solid arguments in their case studies, they all came in like sharks, poked needles in all the holes of his work and, when they couldn't find any, they twisted things, made weird leaps in logic and redefined the smallest things to make their own loopholes.

 

Some days he felt like a fish floundering in the middle of a group of hungry cats. It was exhausting.

 

By the time Lance is ending the song, Shiro feels a little more tense than he's used to when he's here, teething at the rim of his glass. It's a ridiculous thought, but one that's pushed to the forefront of his mind more than once. Was law school a mistake? Sure, it wasn't an easy goal to accomplish, but Shiro had always told himself that all the trouble was worth it. He'd get out of school, pass the bar exam and all the red tape and he'd be free to just spend his time helping people.

 

Shiro watches without really listening as Lance says his thank yous and packs up his guitar in a soft case. He'd told himself there was a pay off at the end, but how could he tell between optimism and pessimism? Was it really so easy at the end, or was he just telling himself that to get through the rough days? There really wasn't any way to know the lawyers he'd run into down the road wouldn't be exactly as meddlesome as his classmates. Who knew, they could be worse with the extra practice.

 

Someone's hands creeps into view where he's staring hard at the table and Shiro pulls himself out of his thoughts. He looks up and sees it's Lance, his guitar over his arm and smiling at him kindly. Some of his worry dissipates as he sits up and reaches to get his wallet out of his pocket.

 

"I'm so sorry. I wasn't paying any attention just now," Shiro says, thinking Lance has come over to gently pry a tip out of him. He pulls a ten out of his wallet, but Lance pauses, looks between them before he reluctantly takes it.

 

"Ah, thanks. I was actually asking if I could sit though..." Lance says. Shiro stumbles a bit, but ultimately motions first to the empty chair, then to a waitress.

 

"Help yourself. I'm just here alone," Lance sits and when the waitress approaches Shiro orders himself another beer, then glances towards Lance. "It's on me if you want something."

 

"Water, please," Lance says then, when Shiro looks at him, "I'm just thirsty! I've been talking for like three hours straight."

 

"I really liked it," Shiro says. "Both the singing and, you know, your stories. You're really good." Lance bites back the brunt of a smile, but his cheeks flush a little. He leans on the table and crosses his arms in front of him and Shiro realizes he's doing much the same.

 

"I'm glad you think so. I haven't been doing this for a very long time, so I'm not like, the _best_ out there. I just mostly look for open mic nights like these and hang out." Lance motions to the others in the bar, who have broken up into their own conversations.

 

"You do it as a hobby then?" Shiro asks. Lance's mouth turns into an almost-frown.

 

"Not exactly," Lance trails off. Shiro doesn't know if there's something he just doesn't want to say or if he's trying to be coy.

 

"Okay, can you elaborate on something for me then? That Eagles song you did at the end, you said it meant a lot to you but you didn't say how exactly. Can you tell me, or is that a secret? I was just curious is all," Shiro says. It certainly got him thinking. More than he has in recent memory.

 

"Well, it's kind of a long story..." Lance starts. Shiro leans in a bit over the table, curious.

 

"I'm interested if you want to tell it, but you don't have to if you don't want to. It just got to me, and I wanted to know what you were thinking," Shiro admits. Lance shifts, crosses his legs under the table when the waitress brings him his water. He takes his a long sip from his glass and Shiro watches how his lips wrap around the straw, the soft bob in his throat with each swallow. He half expects Lance to shift back into the same, slightly more chatty version of himself he'd seen on stage, but the Lance now seems a bit more demure and introspective as he thinks.

 

"I'm kind of a deadbeat, if the get up I've got going on here and the fact that I don't sing for tips as just a hobby is enough of a clue," Lance says. He motions to himself and what he's wearing, the jacket about three sizes too big for him, the tired jeans and the worn in and grungy shoes. "A couple years ago, when I was a senior in high school, I moved to New York. From Cuba, so like, a big difference, yeah? I had something to prove and I figured the US was the best place to do that," Lance starts getting into his story then, sitting up in his chair so his arms are free to motion around with what he says.

 

"I got a visa and I came up here by myself. I'm the youngest in my family, so they all had gotten settled in what they wanted but, I don't know. I just wanted to show them I could live by myself. That I could do good in a really big school. Like I could make a name for myself and be like, famous or something. In New York! Of all places!" Shiro’s brows raise. He imagines a smaller and scrawnier version of Lance in one of those massive New York City schools, determined to outstrip the crowds around him.

 

"How'd that go?" Shiro prods. Lance's shoulders sag a little.

 

"I hated every second of it. Everything was always about where I was from and not what I was trying to accomplish. I didn't know anybody. I was living by myself for the first time in my life. My family wasn't even in the same country and I missed them all the time. I mean, I passed, but I wasn't a valedictorian like I had imagined. I was just one person in a class of a thousand. I didn't even go to the ceremony because no one could make it up to see it. I just stayed home," Lance says. Shiro thinks about telling him something along the lines of 'That sucks' or 'I'm sorry' but Lance moves on before he has the chance to.

 

"So then I thought, 'Well, what did you come up here for?' I got _another_ visa and decided to give college a shot. I hated that even more. Everything was hard, and I suddenly had to juggle all these classes and campus life and living in a dorm and at the same time I'm still missing my family. And I'm starting to think I made a really big mistake. Like, I put all this work in but I'm too far down the road to just decide to drop it all and go back home to mom and dad with my tail between my legs."

 

"How'd that turn into you singing?" Shiro asks. He's glued to Lance's story, fascinated that someone joking around in a tiny bar has so much of a past to him. How did it connect?

 

"My roommate got me into old American music. It was weird. I was just sitting in my room stressing so much over finals I couldn't sleep. Listening to the radio. Then that song comes on and it really _got_ to me. Like," Lance shrugs. "I just had this really strong feeling like- I didn't I didn’t _want_  to be like the woman in the song, but that was exactly what I was doing, you know? She settled for someone who had money and made her life comfortable, but then like, she had to change herself for it. She was doing something she thought would be good for her but she's so unhappy that she can't enjoy it. I was the same way. I wanted to go to college in the states and do good and make my family proud, but by that point was just thinking about how much I didn't want to be there anymore. I hated it so much I wasn't paying attention to what was going on around me and I wasn't even really getting towards what I had set out for in the first place."

 

"So you wanted to sing instead?" Shiro prompts him. His head is spinning. It sounds so uncannily like himself. His heart is jumping in his chest thinking that he's in the same spot. Caught in the ditch but still determined to force his way through the nettles instead of finding an easier route. Lance's smile feels like a hand reaching down to help him out.

 

"Yeah, kind of. I had a guitar I knew how to play and I don't think I'm awful at singing. I just sat there at my desk and thought to myself 'If I could just get up and do anything else with my time here, what would it be?' The first thing that came to mind was that I wanted to travel. I wanted to meet people and see places and just, I don't know. Chill out and enjoy the view. So," Lance shrugs. "that's what I've been doing for the past few months. I sing and use the tips to either get a ride or a hotel room. It’s kind of dumb, that I would just suddenly drop out like that." He goes quieter. "My parents were pretty mad when I called and told them I wasn't going to school anymore, but I wasn't going home just either but," he slumps in his chair a little. "It's not like I dropped it forever. I plan on coming back to it. I just...needed a break, I guess."

 

"It's not dumb," Shiro says quickly. "To be honest, I think I'm kind of in the same spot. Law school." Lance gives him a wide smile.

 

"Yeah, you're doing better than I ever did..." he says. Shiro wonders about that. Was it worth it when he was depressed and dreaded every day? Was it really all that good when his trust in other people got whittled away by his peers? Maybe Lance had a good idea here. Maybe he should find a stopping place, put the law thing on the back burner and take a break for a couple months. He had been aching to go hiking lately...

 

"I don't know about that," Shiro says. Then, after a second to consider. "You have a place for tonight set up yet? If…if you wanted to save on a hotel, I have a spare room you're free to. I promise I'm not some kind of creep," he says. Lance brightens up and sits straighter, his cheeks glowing when he blushes.

  
"I might take you up on that. I wanna hear what law school is all about."


	9. Junkyard/Shance/T

They were having a lucky streak lately, and had two pieces of the lions to hunt down at the same time. One piece of the green lion was supposedly floating around in a black market auction house. Considering their funds as of this morning, Shiro could only assume something straight out of Mission Impossible was going down with the others. Being an escaped convict, Shiro was too recognizable, and so had been snubbed from that particular mission. (Though, if they did ever decide to "turn him in" they probably could afford that green lion part with plenty to spare.) Lance had wholeheartedly refused to go with the others. The piece the two of them were after now belonged to the blue lion, and Shiro was pretty sure that thing meant more to him than his own skin.

 

Shiro wishes the others luck as he hits the button to open the back hatch of their small ship and Lance starts easing their bike down the ramp to the rocky earth below. They'll probably need it more than he and Lance do right now. The place looked like someone had decided that opening a junkyard on a remote, uninhabited planet was somehow a good idea. Shiro had found it weird at first, that a piece of the blue lion would turn up in the middle of nowhere, but now that he's gotten a look at the place, he can see how someone could have tossed a random bit of lion here.

 

They had landed their ship down a good distance off from a veritable mountain of junk standing like a massive, black lump against the night horizon, when they had picked up a handful of lifeforms hanging around near the base. The remaining distance they would cover on the bike Lance is revving impatiently at the bottom of the ramp, kicking up a puff of dust into the surprisingly thick atmosphere. Shiro frowns but Lance only gives him a cheeky grin and motions to what he'd lovingly referred to as the "bitch seat" behind him. Shiro steps down the ramp and climbs on the bike as the ship closes up behind him.

 

"Don't take us all the way there. Get close, but then we'll find a place to hide the bike and walk the rest of the way," Shiro says. Lance nods, then paws around for Shiro's hand until he wraps his arms around the blue paladin's slim waist.

 

"You're always so careful," Lance accuses him as he turns the bike and heads off towards the junkyard at an easy pace. "I told you about this. All we have to do is ask the owner if we can poke around. We find the part, take it with us, and the guy never has to know what he's missed out on. We'll probably get back in time to help everyone else. Chill out." Lance's casual attitude makes Shiro worry he's going to completely ignore his orders and just drive up to the front door but, to his relief, Lance does pull the bike into a thick patch of tall, wheat-like grass and turns it off. He pulls off his goggles and loops them over the handlebars while Shiro does the same.

 

"Alright. Now sneak in, pick up my baby, and right back out," Lance hops off the bike and Shiro has to rush after him before he loses him in the grass. "No muss. No fuss."

 

The "fuss" however, starts up almost as soon as they find a hiding spot behind a wrecked shipping crate near the edge of the junkyard. Shiro peeks around the end of the crate and takes stock of the action. A thin trail of smoke rises from a fire in the middle of a small camp. He counts five aliens lingering around it. About as tall of himself, but looking like something that reminds him of a bipedal mix of skunk and weasel. A sleek and long body balanced on short, thin legs with a long fuzzy tail nearly dragging the ground behind them. Their faces are pointed and sly looking with deep set but bright eyes. They vary in color from white to black to differing shades of brown. Two crouch near the fire, two walk around the perimeter of camp, all of them armed with short spears in their hands and small blasters tucked in their belts. One more lingers around on the far side of their camp, looking over something he can't quite see.

 

"Shiro!" Lance hisses. He hooks his fingers into Shiro's cloth belt and tugs it lightly to get his attention. When Shiro pulls back into hiding and looks at him, Lance holds out his datapad. The faces of all the aliens in camp are on the screen, each with a short list of crimes and a number listed beneath. Bounties, along with the Galra script he recognizes from his own bounty, even without Pidge's translations alongside it. Extremely dangerous. "These guys are bandits! They're wanted for hijacking Galra cargo ships and reselling the goods!" Shiro thinks over that for a beat.

 

"So, they're pirates?" he asks. He can't resist. Lance's expression twists into something almost unreadable. Either like he wants to laugh or wants to smack Shiro upside the head. He settles for an irritable sigh.

 

"No, they're bandits. Thieves. Whatever. Pirates have a code of conduct and," Lance motions to himself, "a sense of decency. A purpose greater than monetary gain." Shiro doesn't look impressed and Lance growls.

 

"That guy has a piece of my lion! It's," he looks around the crate and Shiro follows him. The one at the far side of camp has now moved, holding something roughly the size of a microwave. Lance points at it. "It's that thing!" It glows a dull blue as he carries it towards the fire and barks something to the two resting there. They start motioning around it, seeming confused as to why it's suddenly started reacting. It must be picking up Lance's essence and started calling to him. Shiro doesn't know if he should be thankful that they don't have to dig through this entire mess of junk to find it or cursing that it's already in the hands of dangerous aliens.

 

"Listen Lance," Shiro starts once they pull back behind cover. "How do you suggest we take care of this?" He already knows what he's going to do, but it never hurts to ask for the opinions of others before he starts making orders. Lance knows this, and frowns lightly.

 

"You're gonna tell me to make a distraction while you go in and steal it," he says, his voice slightly downtrodden. Shiro has to give it to him for already knowing what he's thinking. A year of working together has formed them all into a tight knit team. "But…there's only five of them. And they look pretty spindly. We should just spook them, take the thing and run. It'll only take us a few minutes to get back to our bike, and then they can't catch us."

 

"But it only takes them a couple seconds to shoot you in the back," Shiro chides him gently. Lance's mouth fights not to pout. Shiro gently grips his shoulder, feels soft blue silk over warm skin. "It's just the two of us right now. We're outnumbered, so we have to be safe as we can with this." Lance rolls his eyes and when he sets his cheek on Shiro's hand Shiro warms in his chest and squeezes him firmly.

 

"Go around that way," Shiro says, pointing behind them. "Be careful not to let them see you. Three minutes from now, make some noise. It doesn't matter how you do it, just try not to let them know your exact location. While they're distracted, I'll hop in, grab the part, and we'll meet at the bike." He claps Lance firmly on the shoulder. "Let's go."

 

The ferret-looking aliens have mostly lost interest in the cube by the time Shiro is nearing a good place to spring into action. They've left it resting near the fire and now it glows a duller blue, likely because Lance has moved farther away from camp. They're not paying much particular attention to it, but it's still in the middle of camp. Shiro kneels beside a rusted out barrel of small engine parts not far out of the ring of light made by their campfire. His Galra hand is free and ready to activate at a moment's notice.

 

Something sails through the crisp night air, little more than something blocking out the twinkle of a few stars for a couple seconds. It lands in the mangled heap of junk, sending small bits of shrapnel raining over the camp. The bandits startle, take up their spears as Lance throws another object with a loud clatter.

 

"Where?" one bandit squeaks to another. They hold their heads low as they squint into the darkness, their spears ready. Lance once again throws something, this time from a slightly different spot. He's moving around so they can't find him quickly. A heavy crate tumbles down the mountain and through the center of camp, scattering the fire into a fountain of embers around the blue lion part. The two bandits startle back, then break apart in different directions around the fire. The path between Shiro and their goal is clear.

 

He hops out hiding, ducking through a mess of coals and flying junk. Through this chaos, he doesn't expect anyone to realize he's here. He'll grab the box and they'll be gone with the aliens none the wiser.

 

He's within arm's reach of the box when pain flares up his side and nearly sends him tumbling into the glowing fire pit. The bandit's black fur nearly disguises him completely against the night sky. His eyes glow a sickly green, small, white teeth glowing in the faint light of the scattered fire. He holds his spear point over Shiro's throat, brings it back-

 

Bright blue zips through the air and strikes the bandit full in the chest. It knocks him back and he drops his spear. He screeches, smoke rising from his singed fur as he stumbles back. The others start chattering orders to each other in the dark as another blast kicks up dust at the alien's feet in front of him.

 

"Shiro!" Lance's voice rings out somewhere outside of camp. Shiro looks around as he flips over and tries to get back to his feet. The embers he landed on burn the backs of his arms and eat through his vest to bite at his skin. Lance stands on top of the container they first approached, keeping the other four bandits in check with rapid fire from his bayard. "Let's go. Forget the piece! We have to get out of here!" He twitches his bayard and sends up several puffs of dust and ash near Shiro, putting out the last lights of the ruined fire and hiding Shiro's movements.

 

Coughing, Shiro squints through the acrid cloud and looks for a way out. The lion piece is right beside him. He claws desperately through hot dust until the box lights up a brilliant blue, just past his hand. Shiro grabs it, hauls it up with him and sprints out of the camp. He doesn't even stop to look if the bandits are following him; he can't do anything about it anyways. Both his hands are occupied lugging the fragment with him, ice cold where he holds it against his chest. All he can do is pray that no one shoots him in the back and that Lance is following him.

 

He's within sight of the grass they hid the bike in when Lance gives a breathless, whooping cry behind him. Relief floods through Shiro and he nearly stumbles as he makes it to the grass. He groans as he hears Lance rustle into the hiding spot with him. He nearly drops the box, sets it down on the ground beside the bike at the last second.

 

"Shiro! You got it!" Lance giggles. He slams into Shiro's back and his legs, burning from the hard run, give out from under him. They both crumple to the ground, dragging in ragged breaths of each other's air. "That was amazing!" Shiro can only wheeze.

 

Lance helps him roll, puffing, onto his back and hugs him tight around his neck, still laughing. "Oh my God. That was awful. But also so cool! Are you okay? You're freezing!" Lance's words all run into each other as he sits up and cups Shiro's face.

 

"Are they still following us?" Shiro asks. Lance's wide grin drops somewhat and he's quiet long enough that Shiro can think about how warm his hands are on his cheeks. How his hair flutters against the night sky. How pretty he is framed by stars and tall, fine stalks of grass. How bright and happy and triumphant his eyes are and what's happening to his heart?

 

"No. They gave up pretty quick when I laid down some covering fire as we were leaving. I haven't seen any of them in a while," Lance admits. He seems more serious now, concerned, and Shiro berates himself for distracting him from that vibrant happiness he'd just showed him.

 

"You were awesome," Shiro says quietly, emphasizing every word. "I completely fell apart when one of them caught me. I didn't do anything but make a mess but you… you really saved my skin. You handled that perfectly!" Lance blushes brightly at the praise, his eyes slip off to the side. Shy. He sucks his lip between his teeth and Shiro's breath catches in his throat. He wants to touch him. Pull him close. Praise him all the time just to see him happy.

 

"You got the piece..." Lance says quietly when it catches his eye. It pulses a dull blue and, when Lance lays his hand on it, ice crystals form on the ground just under it, freezing the grass into brittle strands.

 

"Why'd you tell me to leave it?" Shiro asks. Lance glaces at him, then back to the box. Lance shifts off of him then and picks up the box to strap it securely onto their bike. Shiro gives him plenty of time before he realizes Lance doesn't want to answer. He sits up and joins Lance, sets his hand on his back. "How come? That's… that's why we came out here in the first place."

 

"Because if we left it, we could always come back and find it later. They would probably just sell it and we could track it down when things were safer," Lance admits, pouting at the bike and shrugging. "If...if something happened to you, I couldn't just come back and find you later. You'd be gone," he's quiet for several seconds. "I was scared of losing you."

 

"Thank you," Shiro says softly. He gives in to his urges and the hand on Lance's back slides around his waist and pulls him close. "I'm happy to know you have my back." He licks his lips, thinks, then presses his mouth to Lance's shoulder. Not quite a kiss, but enough to make Lance jump in surprise against him, warm and solid against this cool skin. Lance relaxes after a second and turns enough to wrap his arms around Shiro's chest and hug him back tightly.

 

"I'm glad you're okay," he says softly. Shiro hums in contentment and they stand there next to the bike, soaking each other in.


	10. Stranded/Shance/T

The worst part is that this isn’t the first time this has happened. This isn’t the first time he’s gotten himself stranded in some backwards, uninhabited planet with nothing but a beat up lion and a wounded pride.

Lance curls up in the mouth of a shallow depression in a high cliff, more overhang than an actual cave.  Rain falls in sheets off of the rock above him and echoes through his hiding place in a deafening, neverending roar. This whole planet is covered in foliage; vines as thick as his leg, leaves as big as a california king bed. Flowers on flowers on flowers and stands of trees so dense they all tangle together, each trying to strangle their neighbors for a spot in the sun.

Blue is out there, lifeless, at the base of the next hill maybe a quarter mile out, but Lance can hardly see her through the rain and plant life it’s so thick. He really should have just stayed with her, but somehow he’d thought he’d be able to find some help here. Like pushing his way through a rainforest thicker than the Amazon while it was drizzling was in any way a good idea.

He’d made it half an hour before he’d walked right off a sudden drop hidden by a crop of massive flowers. Good news. He’d only fallen maybe five feet. Good news. He hadn’t broken his neck. Good news. He’d managed to make his way to this tiny shelter before the rain really picked up.

Bad news. He’d twisted his ankle pretty severely. So if the rainstorm and the forest wasn’t difficult enough to navigate, crippling himself made it basically impossible to get back to his lion even though he knew she couldn’t be far.

Hindsight was always 20/20. Lance curses it as he tests his ankle, gently pressing his fingers against the swollen flesh. It throbs with every heartbeat and his boot feels too tight. He doesn’t dare take it off lest that make the swelling worse while he doesn’t have anything to treat it.

Why didn’t he just stay in his lion? Why did trekking through an alien rainforest sound like a good idea? How did he not immediately realize how dangerous that was? Every time something like this happens, it’s so obvious it’s like looking back on a train wreck and wondering how he could let it go so wrong. His entire life is just one terrible idea after another.

The only thing he’s done right today is keep his helmet with him. It’s sitting on the rock next to him, the intercom turned up a loud as it will go to compensate for the roar of the storm. Lance squeezes his ankle and rocks back and forth as a deep, aching pain bleeds up his leg.

“Maybe one day you’ll finally just fuck up and actually die,” he growls to himself through his teeth. His legs fucking _hurts_ and he wonders if he’s really messed something up in there. “Would you learn then? Not to just run off and do stupid shit every day or your life?”

“Totally tweaking your leg and stranding yourself in the middle of nowhere not enough for you?” his tone turns mocking as he eases his leg straight, pulling in a shuddering gasp when he tries to test and flex his foot. The pain is cathartic, in a way, and he does it again, until pain zings up the back of his calf and he has to relax again. He shouldn’t test it like that. “You’ve got to make it hard for everyone else too? Make them drag your useless ass around? Fucking- You’re trying to fucking _save the universe here_ ,  jackass! What’s wrong with you?”

“Lance!” Lance flinches out of his thoughts when his helmet crackles. He sits up fully, forces himself to take a deep breath and calm down before he takes up the helmet and puts it on.

“Lance? Are you there?” Shiro’s voice sounds tinny and it echoes painfully in Lance’s helmet until he can turn it down a little. “Where are you?” He’s clearly worried. Lance wonders if he had heard his little outburst.

“Uhm,” Lance says, looking through the curtain of rain water at the sea of forest. “I don’t really know. If Blue is back up she should be giving you a signal. Otherwise, I can’t tell you much beside that it’s very rainy and there are lots of trees here.” Shiro goes quiet and Lance wonders if they’ve lost connection before he speaks up again.

“Okay, yeah, I see Blue’s signal. I’m headed over. You’re not there?” Shiro asks.

“No, I-I’m holed up at a cliff. At most a half mile out. I can almost see her from here,” he admits. He expects Shiro to scold him for that. After all, it’s much safer to just stay put when you’re lost. Hasn’t he learned that yet? “I’m sorry. I had thought that maybe I could find some help or a-a…I don’t know. Like a reference point or something.” Shiro sighs and Lance’s heart sinks, knowing the disappointment that must be on the black paladin’s face. “I’m sorry.”

“This isn’t a big deal, Lance,” Shiro says. In the distance, Lance can see the clouds cave in and break apart around Black’s bulk, its normally bright colors washed out through the rain. “You don’t have to be sorry for anything. I’m not going to grudge coming to get you, even if you wander off a little bit.” Lance slumps as the Black first hovers over Blue, then starts circling around. Shiro’s looking for the cliff Lance mentioned.

“Is your leg okay?” Shiro asks after nearly a minute of looking. His voice is softer now, tinged with concern. He’s veering close, closing in on Lance’s spot, but Lance completely forgets to speak up and tell him when he realizes Shiro’s heard everything he’d said. Lance sighs and tries to flex his foot again. A fresh wave of pain washes up his leg and Lance swallows any sound he wants to make for it.

“I just twisted it. Just enough that I don’t want to walk back to Blue myself,” Lance admits. He doesn’t want to tell him how it happened. That it’s just because he wasn’t looking where he was going.

“Are _you_ okay?” Black hovers then over the cliff and any response Lance wants to make is drowned out over the Lion’s thrusters easing its huge form to the ground, spraying Lance with rainwater. Lance is quiet while Black crouches and Shiro trots out and up to where Lance is doing his best to look pitiful, wounded and soaking wet. He takes his helmet off and Shiro does the same as he kneels down and cups Lance’s face in both his hands, warm on his cold and wet skin.

“Everyone makes mistakes, Lance,” Shiro says. He bumps their foreheads together and Lance is torn between relief that Shiro’s finally here to get him or guilty that he’d let Shiro overhear his breakdown. Their eyes meet and Shiro’s eyes swirl with emotion. Relief, worry, love. Lance pouts, and Shiro presses a firm kiss on his cheek.

“Come on. We’ll talk about it once we get home and you warm up a little,” Shiro says. He pulls one of Lance’s arms over his shoulder, the other wrapping firmly around his waist. They stand and, when Lance tries not to lean much of his weight on him, Shiro tugs them tight together. A silent plea to use him as a support.


	11. Chilly/Shendak/T

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags: Omegaverse, dubcon cuddling

‘This is it,’ Shiro thinks when the elevator doors open and the sentries to either side of him lead him out into a long hallway. He can tell just from the look of the doors that they’re in a residential area. There’s only one person who likes to have Shiro in his personal rooms.

Sendak.

Dread weighs heavily in his stomach. Every time Sendak buys his time, he feels the same way. Ever since he’d caught Sendak’s attention in the ring, the huge alpha had been a thorn in his already sore side. The guy never tired of him. Sendak always loved to tell Shiro how much money it cost him to get Shiro to himself for a few hours. Loved to talk down to him, backhanded praise about how good he fought in the ring. For an omega. How strong he was. For an omega, even as he raked his claws across Shiro’s skin and drew blood. More than a few of his scars had been dealt by Sendak himself.

They near the door to Sendak’s room and smell hits him. Strong and heady, and even though it’s slightly alien to his senses, Shiro still recognizes the smell of rut at the first hint. One sentry has to wrench his arms behind him when he tries to struggle away while the other rings for Sendak. Shiro pants anxiously in the few seconds it takes for Sendak to open the door. The alpha on a good day was painful. Sendak in rut would probably kill him.

Sendak opens the door, growls, and Shiro changes hands before he really gets a chance to try and pull away. The door shuts, locks, and his wrists are free of the cuffs holding them together. Shiro pushes himself against the wall and glares, bracing himself for Sendak’s approach. The smell of his rut is strong enough in the room that it makes him woozy, filling his lungs like thick smoke.

He makes a quick glance around the room, looking for an escape. It’s a small place, despite Sendak’s station, and as always, it’s relatively neat. Except for the living room, where the couch is nearly overtaken by a massive nest of blankets and pillows spilling off of the couch and into the floor. Shiro makes to eke away from Sendak, but the alpha growls and grips his arm, not budging at all when Shiro hisses angrily and tries to pry his fingers off.

“Stop that,” Sendak rumbles. He tugs at Shiro’s arm and even when Shiro tries to fight, the Galra is strong enough to pull him along despite his greatest efforts. “I’m not gonna hurt you. I’m in rut.”

“Bullshit!” Shiro growls. He goes along simply because he knows Sendak is fully capable of pulling his shoulder right out of socket if Shiro gives him an excuse to. But, he can’t help but notice that, while Sendak is holding him tightly, he’s not digging his claws in like he normally would. Rather, they’re shaking slightly. They round the end of the couch and Sendak shoves him. Shiro lands in the middle of the nest, nearly gasping as he’s surrounded in blankets and Sendak’s scent engulfs him. “Why else would you call me up here?”

“Because I’m freezing my ass off,” Sendak growls as he climbs into the nest with him. “I’m not interested in anything but warming up.” Shiro watches him warily as he settles in beside him and oddly, now that he looks he can believe Sendak, as strange as it sounds. It’s not just his fingers shaking; his whole body is shivering. And he’s almost comically fluffy looking, his fur standing on end to try and capture as much warm air against his skin as he can.

“You’re in rut,” Shiro says blandly, too shocked to do anything but lay there as Sendak curls up on his side next to Shiro, squeezing himself into the scant space between the Champion’s body and the couch. “But you’re just cold. That makes no sense.”

“I’m not interested in the sex,” Sendak says. He tosses a thick and heavy blanket over both of them, then another, and Shiro feels himself starting to sweat. “So I just get cold instead.”

“You’re not interested in sex,” Shiro repeats, disbelieving. But Sendak spends some time, still shivering, tucking the blankets in tight around them both, then he tucks his nose against Shiro’s hair and rubs back and forth, running his cheeks over Shiro’s head.

“I don’t know of any simpler way to put it,” Sendak sighs, long suffering. “Just shut up and stay there. You’re an omega, so you’re warm.”


	12. Cryptid Keith/Sheith/G

He had not expected to see a purple cat today. He was not prepared to perfect his new suturing skills on said purple cat because he was the only person it would let touch it. Now at the end of the day, when he’s finally just locking up and going home, he was definitely not in any way ready to face whatever was hollering for him in the pens. 

“Shiro!” It calls, and Shiro stands stock still by the heavy metal door leading towards the big cages they kept the rescued animals in while they recovered. He can’t see anything off through the tiny window set in the door, but he hears the rattling of one of the chain link gates between cries. He was just about to turn off the lights and go home! What’s in there calling for him when he’s the only person here?

“Hey! Shiro? Your name’s Shiro, right? Please! Let me out!” it calls. His heart hammers in his throat and he readjusts his grip on the handle. Maybe he should just turn around, duck out, and sprint through the 200 yards of night to his car because he  _ can’t  _ deal with this right now. Today was weird enough already with that fucking  _ purple cat _ . Now ghosts? 

“Shirooo….” It whines. “Please don’t tell me you left. I’m fucking stuck!” Shiro frowns at the sadness in its voice. What if it’s not something spooky? Shiro swallows, eases the door open. Maybe someone was staying late and somehow got locked in. 

The door clicks shut behind him and now he can see that one of the gates near the far end of the room starts shaking eagerly. “Hello?” it calls, an edge of desperation in its voice. “Please, let me out!” Shiro sets a brisk pace towards the end of the room. If they need help, he should help. If it’s something scary well… Shiro balls his hand in a fist, half ready to fight whatever’s making a racket. 

“Shiro!” Its-  _ his  _ long, purple tail, twitches lightly at the tip when Shiro comes into view and looks into the cage. The blanket he’d covered the gate with earlier has been ripped down and balled up into a little bed in the corner, the padlock holding the gate close twisted and pulled in on the wrong side of the bar where he had tried to free himself. “Can you let me out?” 

Shiro does a double take, opens his mouth, closes it again. A shifter? He looks over the slim, dark haired boy in the cage, takes in the soft, pointed ears and sleek tail. He’d heard of shifters, but they were cryptids. Like Bigfoot. Or Nessie. They were a myth and didn’t  _ actually  _ exist. 

But he very clearly remembered putting the cat in here not two hours ago. And now there was a person, and no one but himself had been in or out since then. The gash on the boy’s shoulder even matched the wound Shiro had stitched up earlier. 

The boy fiddles with the short length of chain holding the gate shut, pushing the padlock back out on Shiro’s side with a hopeful look. 

“How…?” Shiro asks. He reaches for his keys, flips to the correct one and pushes it into the lock. 

“Don’t ask,” the boy says. Shiro hardly has time to pull the lock off before he’s pushing the gate open and shoving his head up under Shiro’s chin. He purrs thickly, rubbing back and forth all over Shiro’s neck and shoulder. “Thank you for helping me, but can you help me get home now?”


	13. Reunion/Sheith/T

Keith squeezes out of his lion’s mouth six feet from the ground. His legs shudder when he hits, knees and hips aching at the rough landing. But it doesn’t stop him. He’s around the Galra fighter and launching up over the cockpit with a speed he’s never felt before. He’s overtaken by a mad, desperate energy and there’s no way to fight it. 

He slaps his thigh, trying to make his bayard materialize faster, trying to rip it from his suit with pure will. He jams the blade in the miniscule seam between the glass windshield and the metal cockpit and wrenches the weapon out. The glass groans, creaks, and doesn’t budge. He doesn’t have enough power to force it. 

He can’t see inside the cockpit. A hundred different scenarios rush through his mind. Shiro’s hurt. Shiro’s gasping for air. Shiro’s dead and all this time he hasn’t known it. Keith kicks the windshield so hard his teeth clack together. 

“Shiro! Shiro, please, if you can hear me you need to open this thing for me. I can’t-” His breath catches in his throat as he scrambles around the top of the fighter, looking desperately for a button, a lever,  _ anything  _ to open the cockpit. 

He’s about to jump off and look on the underside when the windshield shudders and hisses. The airlock snaps open and then the glass swings up. Keith ducks under it and squeezes himself into the seat with his heart pounding painfully in his throat.

His arms wind around Shiro’s chest before he thinks about it and the first thought that rises is ‘He’s so skinny’. He hugs him hard, feels the bumps of ribs through his worn suit, feels him take in the soft, shallowest breath. 

Air. He needs air. He’s probably suffocating in that helmet. Keith hooks his fingers under the ear, forgetting this isn’t a paladin’s helmet but in the end it doesn’t matter because the emergency button to loosen the thing is right where he thinks it’ll be. The helmet eases and Keith tugs it off of Shiro. 

Shiro’s head falls back into the seat as he takes longer, more ragged breaths, his eyes sunken and bloodshot. His hair is too long. He hasn’t shaved in weeks. He smells of stale sweat and  _ weakness  _ but Keith hardly notices the pained whine that comes out of himself, just like he hardly notices the tears that itch down his cheeks.

He pushes off his own helmet, chucks it aside before he cups Shiro’s jaw and kisses him on both cheeks, under his eyes, on his chapped lips. 

“Oh my God, Shiro,” he breathes. Shiro stiffens, tries to laugh even though it only comes out as a rough, dehydrated croak. “I love you. I thought I lost you. I love you, I love you-” he says it over and over until he hardly knows what he’s saying anymore. All he knows is that Shiro’s here again, in his arms, struggling and weak but  _ there  _ and with enough life in him to turn his head and kiss him back, to grip him around the waist with shaking hands. 


	14. Snowcone/Sheith/G

“This is dumb,” Keith mutters at Shiro’s back. He’s sitting on the hoverbike sidesaddle and instead of actually taking Shiro’s offer of a piggyback, he just sits there and leaves Shiro with his back facing him, slightly crouched and all too aware of the line of people coming off the snowcone stand nearby staring at them.

Shiro bites his lip. What’s the big deal? It’s just a full grown man doing a gentle squat in front of another, slightly smaller full grown man in the middle of a park around noon on a sunny July day. Nothing weird about that. Keith’s bum ankle was obviously wrapped up tight in an ace bandage (he absolutely refused to even consider wearing the boot his doctor prescribed him) to immobilize it.

God, he really should have just taken the crutches with them even if they did pose a scratching hazard to his bike every time he had to strap them onto the tail.

“That line of maybe thirty people staring at us is dumb, Keith. Please. My legs are starting to cramp…” Shiro sighs. Keith shuffles closer and Shiro doesn’t even have to look at him to see him bristling. “Quit being so shy.”

Keith’s hands grip his shoulders and Shiro reaches back, gripping him by the back of his knees and easily lifting him up onto his back. Keith might choke him a little hitching himself up into a more comfortable place, but it’s worth it to be able to set out across the sidewalk and down the path further into the park towards the picnic tables.

“I feel like a weird backpack,” Keith sighs against the back of his neck. He’s trying to hide his face, as if the bright red bike and both their haircuts don’t immediately identify them anyways. Shiro only puffs as he steps into the thick grass, cutting across and into the shade of a huge pecan tree where a picnic table rests in a bare patch of grass near the trunk.

“You should feel like a cute backpack, because that’s what you are,” Shiro teases gently. Keith hugs him a little too tight around his throat and Shiro retaliates by spinning a little too fast to deposit Keith on the tabletop. “What flavor do you want?”

Keith looks at the snowcone stand and the line of people wrapped nearly around it, his eyes shining greedily for the brightly colored treat.

“Tiger’s blood,” he says. And Shiro thinks he shouldn’t have even bothered to ask as he kisses Keith on the cheek and sets out across the grass. That’s the only flavor he ever gets.


	15. Tense/Sheitok/G

The tension makes Shiro’s shoulders feel bigger. It can’t be comfortable, the stiff way Shiro lays there on his side, all his muscles tight and breathing harsh despite Keith’s best efforts. He had thought that things would get a little better once he finally managed to herd Shiro into their shared bedroom, thinking perhaps a dim, quiet room and the warm weight of blankets would help soothe him.

Shiro tips his head, panting thinly into Keith’s hair. Keith runs his hand up and down his side, feeling the labored hitch in his ribs.

“Shiro, it’s alright,” he hums. He pushes himself closer, but remains mindful of crowding him. More than once he’s been shoved bodily to the floor in Shiro’s efforts to escape him. And he could only expect Shiro to come back with sheepish apologies after he’d managed to calm himself down.

“Yeah-” Shiro huffs, but the word is too clipped to really mean anything. Keith watches the hint of Shiro’s pulse in his throat, sees it jump and race faster when the door whooshes open. Keith tips his head to see the new visitor, but he almost doesn’t have to. He knows it’s Antok just by the hushed cadence of his steps and the faint purr that drifts to his ears as he comes close.

“Hey,” Keith greets quietly. Antok’s rumbling deepens for half a second in response as he climbs into bed and over both Keith and Shiro, squishing his broad body into the space between Shiro and the wall. So much for not crowding Shiro. Keith has to lay half on top of him to avoid falling out of bed.

“You’re tense,” Antok says simply. He was never one to use his words to sweet talk Shiro out of his panics. Instead, he slings his heavy arm completely over Shiro and grips the back of Keith’s shirt to keep him from falling into the floor. “Being tense only makes it worse.”

Shiro closes his eyes with a soft, breathy apology, and Keith mirrors him as he takes a measured breath. Antok starts purring again, the sound so deep and thick Keith imagines he can nearly feel it. Keith tucks himself a bit closer to Shiro and Antok hooks his chin atop Shiro’s head.

It’s not long before Shiro starts to relax.


	16. Dinner Date/Heith/G

“There’s no way, “Hunk sighs. Cicada calls fills the hot summer air and Hunk can hardly tell if the stickiness at the back of his neck is from the afternoon humidity or his own nerves clenching tightly around his heart.

“Why not?” Shiro asks. “You’re single, Keith’s single. I mean, you guys get along well enough already. What’s the harm?”

Hunk looks out across the lawn from their hiding spot in the garage, shielded from the oppressive heat of a Texas summer. The problem is that he works with the horse trainer in question and even though the ranch they work for is big, fifteen hundred acres only goes so far when trying to avoid a failed love interest. But damn Shiro for pointing that out. Keith stands on the bottom rung of a wooden fence, one hand gripping one of the posts to steady himself while he fights with one the mules over half an apple with the other. The mule lips his hand and Keith’s laugh filters through the clear air. Hunk thinks he’s never seen a more beautiful creature.

“He likes you,” Shiro hums lowly, pulling Hunk out of his haze. “He talks about you sometimes. Whenever he helps you with something.” Hunk sighs. Keith finally gives up the apple to the mule and rubs the huge animal between its ears as it chews placidly. “Honest. He can’t get enough of you.”

“Yeah but-” Hunk hesitates, biting the inside of his cheek as Keith hops off the fence and wipes his hands on his blue jeans before he tugs his shirt off his chest and fans himself with it. “Being friends and asking him on a date are two different things. I don’t want to ruin what we-”

“Keith!” Shiro calls, cutting Hunk off completely and for a couple seconds Hunk wonders if Shiro had been listening all that closely or if he were simply waiting for an opportunity to get Keith’s attention. “Come over here.” Hunk’s brow furrows, leans over in his folding chair so far that it creaks.

“What the hell are you doing?” Hunk growls. Keith trots across the yard toward them, panting, two bright spots of warmth on his cheeks glowing as he ducks into the shade of the garage.

Shiro just continues his thought like Hunk isn’t about to flee in some kind of primal fear. “Hunk told me he was cooking a couple of cornish hens after work. I can’t make it, but maybe you can go?” Keith opens his mouth, pauses as he glances between them and Hunk’s pulse quickens when Keith looks hopeful.

Hunk drags his eyes off of Keith to shoot Shiro a gentle glare. Damn him for taking the initiative from him, and damn himself for telling him of his find at the market the other day.

“You are?” Keith asks. He blows a piece of hair out of his face. “Uh, well, if you want me over, I can bring beers-” Keith cuts himself off and now he pushes his hair back again with his hand, like he can’t be content just standing there and has to find something to fidget with. “I mean- if that matches. I don’t know what the hell you do with cornish hens. Is that like a wine thing, or what?”

“No, beers sound good- perfect-” Hunks says. His mind is flying now. He has to clean up his house. He has to find something to make for dessert (and now his mind helpfully supplies the fact that once Keith had admitted to a rather shameful weakness to blackberries). “Uh six? Six-thirty?”

Keith smiles, and his expressions softens all the way up to his eyes. “Yeah. I’ll be there.”


	17. Sheith + Kuro(n): Identical

Keith leans forward in his booth seat, his eyes tracking back and forth between the two men sitting across from him. On the left sat Shiro. His boyfriend of close to a year. The guy who could make his heart throb with merely a glance and a gentle smile.

On the right sits someone who isn’t Shiro but who, no matter how long Keith stares, undeniably is Shiro. Sure he’s got a full, close cut beard and his hair is long enough to pull back into a messy bun, but otherwise the similarities were uncanny. They had the same face, the same smile, the same curious white forelock, they were even dressed in the same black tshirt and well fitted jeans. Hell, they even had matching tattoos on their right arms. To Shiro’s black lion, his twin’s was white.

“This is Kuro,” Shiro says. Kuro can barely nod his head in greeting before Keith scoffs into his straw so hard a bubble pops in his milkshake.

“Are you kidding me?” Keith asks. They both respond with chuckles so similar it sounds like an echo. Keith takes a furious suck off his milkshake, momentarily distracting himself with the taste of strawberry.

“Not really. It’s actually Ryou, but people call him Shiro, so the younger twin gets Kuro,” Kuro says. Keith rolls his eyes and jabs a finger at his boyfriend.

“How come I never knew you had a twin?” Both give each other surprised looks.

“You didn’t? There’s pictures of both of us in the living room,” Shiro says. The kicker is that Keith knows exactly what he’s talking about. There’s a little patch of wall over Shiro’s reading chair devoted to pictures of his family. His parents together. His grandmother. And two of the same boy of about ten in slightly different poses, lacking the scar Shiro has over his nose but still with the white streak in his hair. Something clicks in Keith’s mind and he’s pissed. He bites the inside of his cheek, glaring into his mostly empty glass for a beat before he whips his gaze to Shiro.

“I thought that was two pictures of you!” he huffs. He backs off quickly when his embarrassment starts cutting through his irritation. Shiro’s mouth drops open. Kuro laughs.

“W-why would I have two pictures of myself?” Shiro sputters. Kuro wheezes and Keith hides his face in his hands. A twin made so much more sense than his boyfriend just having this small, narcissistic quirk.

“I always thought it was really weird…” Keith admits from behind his hands.

“I love him, Takashi. He’s precious,” Kuro gasps. Shiro growls and arches his back a little, digging his phone out of his pocket before he scoots out of the booth.

“Come on. Both of you up. We’re taking a picture right now so my boyfriend can stop thinking I’m some kind of freak.” Thirty seconds later, squished between the two of them and trying to conjure up a genuine smile despite how hot his cheeks feel, he thinks the embarrassment might be worth it.

 

 


	18. Shallura: Introduction

“My daughter’s come to help you while I’m gone,” Alfor says as he shrugs on his coat. The case he picks up is small but rattles with a myriad of tiny glass bottles of medicine. Alfor grunts under the weight, fingers straining around the handle. “Sorry to leave the shop to you so suddenly but well, Zarkon is an old and dear friend of mine…”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll be able to manage while you’re gone and if…” 

“Allura,” Alfor fills in. He struggles to open the door. Shiro steps in and holds it open for him. 

“If Allura’s half as talented as you then I’ll have nothing to worry about.” Shiro says. Alfor steps out onto the stoop, pulling his coat tight against the bitterly cold wind. 

“She’s upstairs in the library,” he laughs. “I’ve been trying to convince her to work for me for years. Be careful telling her that.” Waving goodbye, Shiro shuts the door and pulls off his own coat. 

Alfor’s Alchemy doesn’t open for another half hour, but a fire is already blazing in the hearth keeping the room warm despite the chill seeping in through the glass window panes. What thin winter light is outside dimly brightens a front room crowded with alchemical plants and shelves overflowing with containers of a thousand different substances. Shiro picks his way through the front room towards an equally crowded library, figuring he should probably introduce himself to the elf’s daughter before he opens up the shop. 

A young woman sits in the window seat, surrounded by stacks of books. A tiny dish sits on the windowsill, a small but bright ball of light floating over it to augment the faint winter light. Her white hair shimmers, bright blue eyes narrowed as she reads. Shiro forgets to breathe. He’s never seen someone quite like her and his heart leaps into his throat as his thoughts scatter in a hundred directions. He gasps. 

A pointed, elegant ear twitches. Allura glances at him, tenses and snaps her book shut, a flush on her face. “Oh! Hello,” she says. She huffs and sits up, realizes she’s trapped herself with her book. Flustered, she pushes her hair out of her face and Shiro’s heart skips seeing the pink markings on her cheeks. Cute. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even see you there.” 

“No worries,” Shiro says, clearing his throat and putting everything he has into not stuttering over himself. He steps in and offers a hand. He means to shake hers and introduce himself properly but Allura grasps it tightly, standing on the window seat and leaning into him. Shiro stutters, flushing as Allura braces her other hand on his shoulder. She steps out. Shiro mutters her name in alarm and wraps an arm around her slim waist. He shuffles back, knocking a couple books to the floor before he gently sets her in a bare patch of floor. 

“I was fine!” Allura complains, thumping him in the chest playfully. She laughs, breathless, and Shiro’s dazed by the warmth of her hand on his chest. “Really, must you sweep me off my feet at our first meeting?”

Shiro opens his mouth, starts to mutter around something unintelligent while he struggles to find a response. “W-well, your father said you could take my job pretty easily so I figured I would try to get on your good side while I had the chance,” he says. Allura laughs, tossing her head back and looking regal all the while. 

“Oh, really?” she asks. “Well then, prince charming, let’s open the shop and see if you’re as knowledgeable as you are charismatic.”


	19. Might Go Bar Hopping: Krolia & Sendak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's basically just a scrap of me playing around with an au I've got lingering on the back burner until I can get caught up on my to do list. 
> 
> Couple of things because I wanna talk about it since I really like this au:  
> \- Krolia brought Keith with her when she left earth.   
> \- Ranvieg (and thus Krolia and Keith) are visiting the main fleet for work.   
> \- Krolia's in a bar because the outskirts are boring and while they're in the main fleet she might as well enjoy herself while she has a minute lol.   
> \- While this is going on Keith is absolutely having a 'I am a very small fish in a very, very big pond' kind of thing and you all know he's poking around and getting in trouble.

“Do they make you all so exotic on the outskirts?” Sendak asks. He asks it in a low rumble he probably thinks is alluring and masculine, but honestly it just makes it harder to hear him over the din of the bar’s other patrons. Wade would have called it ‘alpha’. Krolia bites the inside of her cheek to suppress her smile.

He doesn’t know who she is. Doesn’t know that he’s hitting on a visiting warlord’s lieutenant. Or maybe he does and he just doesn’t care. He’s been the emperor’s right hand man since her grandfather’s time after all.

A lot of other women would probably be impressed. Or at the very least would see his bed as an important rung in the empire’s social ladder.

Krolia drums her claws on the side of her icy glass, gazing at the patterns her fingertips leave in the condensation, the way her breath disturbs the lazy trail of cold smoke hanging around the rim. She wonders how difficult he’s going to make it to convince him she’s not particularly interested. Maybe she should tell him she’s already mated (or ‘married’ as humans named it). Though that had always been tenuously binding in the first place and she was pretty sure all legality of that had been rendered null and void the day she bundled Keith into her ship with her and pulled the Empire’s prying eyes off a little pre-contact world called Earth.

No. Mentioning her relationship status, whatever it currently was, was a can of worms she’d rather not open with a puffed up commander convinced already of his dominance over all but one in this godforsaken fleet.

“Actually,” Krolia hums, resting her chin in her hand and using the other to play with the end of her straw. She stares across the bar and starts reading the labels on the liquor bottles, playing true to her disinterest and hoping he wasn’t in a mood to read it as coy. “I’m from the Cardalan Sector so I wouldn’t know.”

It doesn’t work. She sees Sendak give her this stupid little smirk out of the corner of her eye and he leans in, pressing himself into the scant space between the bar stools to hover warm and imposing at her side.

“A small town girl then?” he says. She fights the urge to roll her eyes and hop out of her seat. It’d be easy to just abandon the eight gac of alcohol in front of her and find another bar in the main fleets entertainment hall. But she can’t be sure she won’t be working with Sendak tomorrow so it’s likely in her best interest to let him down easy if she can get away with it. So she glances at him all calm and cool, the corners of her mouth pulled into a smile that shows a little too much fang to be friendly.

“You have no fucking idea.”


	20. Keith/Sendak: Empire!Keith

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for allawander on tumblr

He had sneered when Keith, a half breed whelp had been presented to him. He was tiny. How was he expected to work with an officer who was half his size, and a third his weight? The kid didn’t even look much like a Galra: the only things that gave away his heritage were the pointed ears and soft, pinkish marks across his cheeks. But Keith was the kit of Ranvieg’s lieutenant, and somehow he’d made his way through the ranks and under Sendak’s direct command.

He suspected at first that it was a position hand fed to him by his mother, but Keith quickly made it apparent he needed no help. Sendak’s efforts to drive him away slid off his back as readily as water. Menial tasks done promptly and without complaint, but only to a point. Keith was never afraid to call him out when he tried to hand him bullshit. Keith, small and outcast as he was, entirely lacked any fear.

Which didn’t mean he was great at inspiring it in others himself. Keith is all of five and a half feet of bristling fury at Sendak’s side as negotiations go on. Neighboring commanders bickering with Sendak and each other over who had rights to what planets’ resources and what lines were drawn where and- Keith gives a muted growl when they interrupt each other again. Sendak’s learned to read Keith like a book in the few months they’ve been working together. The kid’s patience is threadbare. Sendak cuts in, essentially telling them to figure it out amongst themselves, and disconnects.

“Peace, Keith,” Sendak murmurs lowly. He reaches up, grips the back of Keith’s neck like pinching a fussing kit’s scruff. The effect is much the same. Keith shudders gently under his fingers, squeezes his eyes shut before Sendak feels the tension bleed out of him. “Their bickering doesn’t mean anything.”

“They’re trying to chip away at your territory. They’re hungry for power. You fought for everything you have, Sendak. How can you just sit there and let them try to pull your hard work out from under you?” Keith asks, but much of the heat in his expression is gone, replaced with something softer, but somehow still showing a hint of that fire Keith always seems to carry in his belly.

“Because they’re not strong enough to take anything from me,” Sendak says. He loosens his grip slightly, but doesn’t pull his hand off of Keith’s neck. He brushes his thumb on the side of Keith’s throat and feels the tiny beat of his pulse. “They talk, but they know what I’d do to them if they actually tried anything. He smiles gently. Keith frowns, he looks like he fights with something inside himself. Sendak gives in to a whim and rubs the marking on Keith’s cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Don’t worry about it so much. You’re working for the greatest commander in the empire. Nothing can touch you.”

Keith meets his eyes then, soft purple burning with emotion and Sendak is lost in them. His mouth twitches, itching for something he can’t quite place yet. Keith tips his head into Sendak’s hand, nuzzling. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> @quiddid on tumblr. You can find all of these drabbles over there as well.


End file.
